Trustee From the Toolroom by Nevil Shute
‘How much land is there, Mr Hirzhorn?’ Jim Rockawin asked.
‘Twelve hundred acres. A little more, I think - twelve hundred and thirty-six, far as I remember. Sarah said it was a silly thing to do because we’d never live there - it would cost a fortune.’ He laughed. ‘Well, then the fortune came, ’n I never wanted to travel or go horse-racing or anything — just build the house and live in it, ’n go on working. And that’s just what I did.’
Julie came into the room behind them. ‘Tea will be here in a minute,’ she said softly. She went through into her own room, leaving the men talking.
She closed the door, and went to a tall cabinet of steel drawers. She selected a file marked STEWART and took it to her desk, and opened it again to refresh her memory.
One of her jobs was to protect her employer, who was also her grandfather. She never sought to influence his judgment; she worked rather to get him the maximum of information with the least effort on his part. They had few contacts in England, but she quickly discovered that there was an agency in London which specialised in finding out particulars of individuals in connection with hire-purchase credit. The first document that they had sent her read:
KEITH MALCOLM STEWART. Born, Renfrew, Scotland, 1915. Lives now at 56 Somerset Road, Ealing, Middlesex, a four-storey, ten-roomed house which is his property. The house was purchased for £3,200 in 1943 by Mr Stewart and subdivided. The top two floors are let at a rental of £2 15 0 per week. There is a mortgage of £2,200 on the property at 5½%. Mr Stewart is married and has no children of his own but has one daughter apparently adopted recently.
Mr Stewart worked as a fitter in the aircraft industry till 1946. He then became a free-lance technical journalist working principally for a magazine called the Miniature Mechanic. His income is estimated at about £700 per annum. His wife works whole time as a shop assistant in Ealing. With the rental of the leased portion of the house, the family income appears to be about £1,100 per annum.
Mr Stewart does not bet or drink to excess. He does not own a car. He appears to live within his means, and has a good reputation in the neighbourhood.
This report reached Julie while Keith was on his way from Honolulu to Tahiti with Jack Donelly, and she was amazed. First she was surprised by the invoice sent with the report, which was for twenty-five shillings, only about three and a half dollars. Secondly, she was staggered by the smallness of the income, only about three thousand dollars from all sources, including the wife’s earnings. And then, to go and adopt a child, upon an income like that!
She had taken the report at once to show to Mr Hirzhorn. He had read it with interest. ‘A guy with his ability, he could earn a better wage than that,’ he remarked presently, ‘even in England. I guess it’s just he kind of likes his work better than making money. There’s nothing wrong with that.’ He handed back the report to Julie. ‘You know sump’n? I’d like to see some photographs. Photographs of the wife, of the adopted kid, of the house, of the street, of the garden of the house, so I can see if he keeps it clean or not. Photographs of anything that you can get.’
‘Okay, Mr Hirzhorn,’ said Julie. ‘We’ll have to have them here within two weeks or so. They should be able to do that. I’ll write today.’ She paused in thought. ‘I’ll say we want it in a hurry. I think I might put three ten-dollar bills in with the letter. Kind of help things along.’
Four days later a pavement photographer took a picture of Katie in Ealing Broadway as she went into the shop, in spite of her smiling denials. Janice got photographed by a strange man on her way home from school to her surprise, and the house and street were taken from all angles, including the back garden. A week after that a sheaf of photographs arrived on Julie’s desk at Wauna in the state of Washington. By the time Keith Stewart got there his hosts knew quite a lot about him.
She put the file back into the steel cabinet and locked it up. The little man looked like what the file and photographs had told her, added to what she had gleaned from sundry issues of the Miniature Mechanic: an honest little man of lower-middle-class suburban type, content to go along upon a miserable salary for the sake of doing the work he loved, with a wife who was prepared to work in order that he should maintain that way of life. There was no deceit about this man.
That was important, for she had little confidence in Chuck Ferris. He was too anxious to sell his hydraulics, to get in to the lumber industry. Jim Rockawin was better, but not much. Seventeen hundred thousand dollars for the conversion of the Flume River mill was quite a contract, in anybody’s language. She knew that production at the Cincinnati factory was declining on account of the reduction in aviation contracts; she knew that they laid off a thousand hands last month. Ferris Hydraulics had indulged in too much salesmanship, and made Julie suspicious. This lending of the yacht … Seventeen hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money.
She had not mentioned her misgivings to her grandfather. Her business was to take his orders, take the load off him where she could, and get him information. She knew, however, that the same misgivings had occurred to him; there had been too much salesmanship. Chuck Ferris would have done better to have charged a charter fee for the Flying Cloud. His refusal to do so had undoubtedly held up the contract for the Flume River mill; the old man smelt a rat. He had delayed a decision till a fresh mind was brought to bear upon the problems of the mill, for fresh advice. He had been waiting for Keith Stewart, to see if this insignificant little engineer from England could say anything useful.
She got up from her desk. She had decided in her own mind that he was honest; that was where she stopped. Whether he was competent was a matter for her grandfather to decide.
She went out into the living-room. The men seemed to have finished drinking tea, and Jim Rockawin was getting up to go. She went through to tell the house-man to clear away the tea, and came back to the hall in time to bid Jim Rockawin good-bye. She went on into the living-room to pull the curtains over the great picture window and to light the lamps, for dusk was falling now.
Sol Hirzhorn came back into the room with Keith. ‘Like to have a look at what I’m doing with your clock, downstairs?’ he asked.
‘I’d like to very much, Mr Hirzhorn,’ he said. They moved towards the door.
Julie said quietly, ‘Drinks will be on the table here at seven o’clock, Mr Stewart, and dinner is at seven-thirty. Mr Hirzhorn usually goes to bed at nine.’
‘You see how she keeps me on a string,’ said the old man.
‘That’s what I’m here for,’ she said equably. She smiled. ‘I generally go down to the workshop about ten minutes of seven, and chase him out. Otherwise he’d be there all night.’
The two men went down to the workshop in the basement. It was a long room, more than forty feet long, but only eight or nine feet wide. There was a long workbench for the full length of it lit by windows in the outer wall, and these windows looked down the hill over the sea inlet and the airstrip. The back wall was of light construction, separating the workshop from the heating plant and from the laundry of the house.
In this long shop was every machine and hand tool that a modeller in metal could desire, from lathes and a milling machine to oxy-acetylene welding and soldering irons. Keith stood and took it all in with a practised eye, from the clock parts laid out on a white cloth at the end of the bench to the racks of raw materials on the back wall. He had never before seen anything like it in a private house, and not in many institutions; its completeness staggered him. He turned to the old man by his side. ‘You’ve certainly got a beautiful set-up here,’ he said. ‘Did you do all this yourself?’
‘No,’ said Mr Hirzhorn. ‘I’ll be straight with you. When I first got interested eight years ago I had the bench put in, and got the South Bend lathe, and fixed that up myself. Well, then when I got going and got really stuck into it I decided on a whole raft of things I ought to have. I was new to it, you see, and the lathe took me a month to get fixed up the way I wanted it. So then I figured by the
‘Very sensible,’ said Keith. ‘You’ve certainly got a fine shop.’
‘You like it?’
‘It’s the best I’ve ever seen, in any private house. That’s the clock, over there?’
‘On the cloth. That’s as far as I’ve gone so far.’
Keith moved over and picked up the tilting table. ‘You’ve made a good job of that,’ he said, examining it. ‘A beautiful job. How did you get the burnishing so flat and even?’
‘Lapped it on a sheet of plate glass with oil and fine-grit carborundum,’ said Mr Hirzhorn. ‘Then I finished off with metal polish.’
‘On the plate glass?’
‘That’s right. I thought this was the part folks would be always looking at, so it ought to be finished good.’
Keith nodded. It was better finished than on most of the examples of the clock that he had seen. He picked up the trunnions and the rocking arm, examined them, and laid them down. ‘You’re getting on quite well,’ he said. ‘These are the four plates?’
‘That’s so. They’ve to be burnished, but I won’t do that till all the holes are drilled.’ He hesitated. ‘They don’t get seen so much,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d do them on a polishing mop.’
Keith nodded. ‘That’s quite good enough. These bevels — did you make them yourself?’
‘No,’ Mr Hirzhorn admitted. ‘I got Clem Harrison to have them made for me. I do spur wheels, but I never did a bevel wheel.’
‘They aren’t so difficult,’ Keith said, ‘but they do take time. I often get mine made in a shop where they’ve got proper tools for it.’ He turned over the parts. ‘You’re getting on quite well,’ he said. ‘I should think you must be about half way through. What’s the next part to be tackled?’
‘Bobbins and armatures,’ said Mr Hirzhorn. ‘I never wound a coil before, and I don’t know how I’m going to make out. Forty-six gauge is mighty fine wire to handle when you can’t see so well.’
‘I know,’ said Keith. ‘It’s better not to handle it at all. It’s so easy to get kinks. I made a coil winder for mine. It’s quite a simple thing. The wire passes from the spool through soft-wood grips tightened by a spring, to give the tension. Then that traverses along the slow feed - the pitch just bigger than the wire diameter. Reverse direction with the tumbler reverse at the end of each row. Like this.’ He seized a piece of paper and began to sketch, Mr Hirzhorn watching intently. Suddenly he stopped drawing. ‘Look — you don’t have to make one. Get on with the 95- and 20-tooth wheels next, and the maintaining gear. As soon as I get back to England I’ll put my coil winder in the post to you, airmail.’ He moved to the South Bend lathe and examined it. ‘You’ll have to make a little plate fitting and put it on the tool post, here. I shan’t be using it. You can post it back to me when you’ve done with it.’
‘Say, that’s mighty kind of you,’ said Mr Hirzhorn. ‘I’ve been kind of frightened of those coils, and yet I want to learn to do them. You know how it is.’
Keith nodded. ‘They aren’t difficult,’ he said. ‘Use the coil winder, and pick a gauge of wire to suit a slow feed on the lathe, and run in back gear at your slowest speed. There’s no magic in forty-six gauge.’ He examined the gearbox on the lathe. ‘Look, this one here gives an advance of four thous per rev. Forty-four gauge is 3.2 thousandths diameter. I should use this gear with forty-four gauge wire. You won’t have any difficulty. Mine took about an hour to make each coil.’
An hour later Julie came down to the workshop. She came in unnoticed by the men and stood behind them for a little, watching and listening. The visit of this English engineer was a good thing; there was no doubt of that. She had been troubled from time to time that the circumstances of his life compelled her grandfather to pursue his hobby and his interest alone. Every evening he went down into the workshop alone. She could not share his interest with him, nor could his wife. It seemed all wrong to her that he had nobody to play with, but that’s the way things were. She knew it for a solitary occupation, in that he wanted to make the whole clock himself, but his pleasure in Keith Stewart’s visit pleased her very much indeed.
She said quietly, ‘Drinks are on the table, Mr Hirzhorn.’
The two men started, and turned to her. Sol Hirzhorn said, ‘They can’t be,’ and looked at his watch. ‘Oh, well …’
They went obediently upstairs with her and washed their hands in the cloakroom. Over the drinks before the big log fire Sol Hirzhorn said, ‘I was wondering if you’d care to take a look at one of the mills tomorrow, Mr Stewart. Ever seen a lumber mill in operation?’
‘I don’t know anything about the lumber industry at all,’ Keith said. ‘It’s all new to me. I’d like to very much indeed. But I don’t want to take your time.’
The old man shook his head. ‘I want to go and see this mill myself. We’ve got an engineering problem there needs sorting out. I think we’ll go into the office first of all while I look through the mail, ’n you can meet the boys - my two sons. Emmanuel and Joseph. They do most of the work now. And then we’ll go on to the mill. Julie!’
‘Mr Hirzhorn?’
‘Julie, we’ll want the car half after eight tomorrow, for the office. You’d better come along. Then ring the aviation section, say I’ll be coming to the airport and I’ll want the helicopter at ten o’clock for the Flume River mill. Maybe we’ll drop in at the Eight Mill Cut in the afternoon, so Mr Stewart sees the whole process.’
‘Okay, Mr Hirzhorn. Will you want Jim Rockawin along?’
‘No. We’ll leave him out this time. But say, if Manny’s free I think he might come. Call Manny after the airport, and if he’s home I’d like to speak with him.’
She moved the telephone to the small table by his side and put it by the glass, and went into her office, closing the door. Five minutes later the buzzer sounded quietly, and the old man picked up the receiver. ‘The helicopter will be ready at ten o’clock,’ she said. ‘I have Mr Emmanuel on the line now. Will I put him through?’
‘Sure.’ There was a click and Mr Hirzhorn said, ‘Manny? Say, Manny, I’ve got Mr Stewart with me now, the British engineer that I was telling you about. That’s right. I’m coming in the office, see the mail first thing and let him meet you and Joe. After that I’m taking him to see Flume River. Would you be able to come along?’
‘I think so, Dad.’ There was a short pause. ‘Bill Schultz of Euclid, he’s coming in the morning about the new trucks, but it’s all financial. It’s more up Joe’s alley than mine. I’ll call Joe presently. If that’s okay with him, I could come.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Mr Hirzhorn. ‘I’d like you to be there if you can make it. Time we made up our minds. I kind of thought that telling Mr Stewart all about it might help to make up our own minds. You know what I mean?’
‘Sure, Dad. I’ll call Joe, and if he doesn’t think he’d like to handle it I’ll maybe call Bill Schultz and put him off a day. It’s not that urgent.’
‘Okay, Manny. Give my love to Rachel. See you in the morning.’ He put down the receiver.
They dined simply in a great dining-room rather too ornately furnished, full of oil paintings and clocks, served by the manservant, Julie dining with them. ‘My wife, Sarah, she’ll be sorry to miss seeing you,’ said Mr Hirzhorn once. ‘She gets this sciatica each winter in the cold and wet, and nothing seems much good except the sunshine and the warmth. She used to go down into California, but she likes Florida best. I go and see her there once in a month or six weeks, but there’s nothing to do there.’ He smiled. ‘No business and no workshop. I like it here. She likes it, too, excepting when it’s cold. She’ll be back around the end of April, soon as it fines up.’
‘Okay, Mr Hirzhorn,’ said the pilot. He spoke to a ground engineer and the father and son got into the machine in the back seat, putting Keith beside the pilot. The pilot got in after them, the doors closed, the engine started, the rotor revved up. Presently the pilot moved the big lever in his right hand gently up and they were in the air and moving ahead slowly. He put the helicopter in a climb and they set out towards the east and north.
The flight was a delight to Keith, who had never been in a helicopter before. It took about fifty minutes over mountains and up shallow valleys filled with the unending forest. In the end a river showed up ahead of them and buildings marked by a great plume of smoke and steam, a railroad, and a small town beside. Mr Hirzhorn reached forward and touched the pilot on the shoulder. ‘Circle round a bit,’ he said. ‘I want Mr Stewart to take in the whole set-up before we land.’